Online marketing is a very broad area and includes many subparts. Being born in the 80s, I learned the ropes of online marketing while witnessing its rapid development. How to get as much visibility on the internet, how to rank higher than anyone else, how to get a video viral? Such are quests I yearn to pursue relentlessly – like a virtual knight on his Nyan Cat. When it comes to online marketing, here is an overview of what I can do for your business.
Search Engine Advertising (SEA)
In a few words…
- Google AdWords
- Bing Ads
- Negative keywords
- Retargeting
- Marketing attribution
- Landing pages
- Conversions
Search engine advertising is about creating, managing and optimizing ads on search engine platforms, such as Google, BING or Yandex. These can be text ads, typically displayed in prime areas of search engine result pages (SERP.) In most cases, the company only pays when a user clicks on one of these ads. There are different ad formats, apt for desktop or mobile, with various options to customize these ads, such as a call extension or a list of prices and/or products.
You can also create visual ads. Static pictures, animated pictures, videos – most search engines support many formats. There is a dozen of sizes you can choose from and your ads will be shown on various platforms the search engine is in partnership with. These can be sites with millions of visitors like YouTube or niche blogs with very specific types of visitors. The advertising company is usually charged whenever an ad is displayed.
Search engine advertising takes many forms and is a very exciting area of marketing. With the right tools and the right persons, you can create engaging campaigns that drive can drive hundreds of thousands of potential customers.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
In a few words…
- Site speed
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
- Technical SEO
- Keyword monitoring
- Organic traffic
- Bounce rate
Search engine optimization is the other side of SEA. It also focuses on being on top of the SERP, or at least rank as high as possible, but in this case for organic searches. Meaning your website ranks first for certain keywords and you do not pay when visitors click on the URL.
While SEA can technically skyrocket your website to rank number one in a matter of minutes, SEO takes a lot more time to bear fruits. There are many ways to influence the ranking of your site.
Let us start with the aspects you can directly act on from your site. This is called on-page SEO, meaning you can do many of these things even if your site is not live. Optimizing your website for search engines ranges from technical to contextual. Technically, you will want a fast site, responsive, with accelerated mobile pages (AMP), optimal picture sizes, etc. From a content perspective, you should aim for striking metadata, a logical use of H tags, qualitative and informative content with a smart internal linking structure. A well-defined URL structure, up-to-date sitemaps and eliminating any 404 pages are also good ideas.
On the other end of the spectrum, we will find off-page SEO. I like to think of it as how your website interacts with the rest of the internet. This includes for instance how many quality backlinks your site has, how your bouncing rate fares, or what the anchor text of these backlinks is. Of course, backlinks from reputable websites such as newspapers or specialist blogs are more valuable than websites with questionable content.
Content Marketing
In a few words…
- Content management systems
- Blog articles
- Infographics
- Videos
- Pictures
- White papers
In 2014-2015, content marketing became THE concept of online marketing. Anyone and everyone would shout “content is king” on top of their lungs. While the hype seems to have simmered down a bit, it is still mostly true.
Content marketing consist of creating useful, informative, entertaining, shareable, and/or likable texts, pictures, or videos without any apparent commercial purposes. This takes the form of a blog post, a tutorial video, a witty picture, an interactive game, or a whole website. These are only the most common examples, but there are many ways to run content marketing. It can aim to reach a very large audience with very accessible content – ideal if you run a B2C business. I can also be very technical, written by experts in a particular field who tackle advanced issues. This is usually well-received if you work in a B2B industry.
While it takes some creative skills to do successful content marketing (writing, filming, picture editing, etc.), it also requires an analytical mind and a well-thought strategy to end up with the right content that will drive the right visitors to your website. Measuring the impact and defining KPIs is arguably more challenging than with other forms of online marketing.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Social Media Advertising (SMA)
In a few words…
- Facebook, Twitter, Google+
- Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat
- LinkedIn, XING
- Campaigns
- Communication and support
- Advertising and incentives
Social media platforms, like search engines, gather millions of visitors. There is a logical source of traffic for marketers and can be very profitable if done right.
Social media marketing is more about communication. It is about adding content to your social media feeds, interact with users, answer queries, stay in touch with influencers, etc. It is more about polishing your image than actually getting new customers. You mostly interact with existing customers or at least people who know you.
Getting potential new clients would be the role of social media advertising. Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to name only a few have their own advertising interface where you can manage ads that they will run according to your budget and your target audience.
TL;DR
John Barré can help you with international SEO, online advertising, content creation, and social media management.